Remembering Manute Bol's shining season in Bridgeport

Bob Ehalt, a copy editor for the Register covered the University of Bridgeport basketball season in 1984-85 for the Norwalk Hour and Stamford Advocate. He was the first reporter to meet Manute Bol and might have spent more time with him than any member of the media. He shares his unique memories of that season and Bol, who passed away June 19.One of the joys of being a sports writer is the seat.

Your 37 ½ or 40 or 75 hours of work per week can sometimes give you a front row seat for some of life's most incredible moments. You watch processions of joy and heartbreak, success and failure, humor and grief as you get a rare chance to view and detail life through the eyes of others and share in their experiences.

Inevitably, as time passes, there are moments frozen in time that separate themselves from others and find a special place in your heart. For me, my favorite year in 30 years as a sports writer will always be the 1984-85 basketball season I spent absorbing every possible second of the University of Bridgeport men's basketball season as a reporter with the Norwalk Hour and then Stamford Advocate.

It was a season that always brought a smile to my face until June 19, when the unique young man responsible for all of that season's magic and magnetism, Manute Bol, passed away from kidney failure at the much too young age of 47.

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Bol's death left me numb for a bit, as I realized how 25 years had flown by faster than the snap of a finger. I thought about the physical and financial problems he endured in the years that followed a 10-season career in the National Basketball Association. The car crash in 2004 that nearly killed him. The demeaning exhibition on "Celebrity Boxing,"?and hokey appearances as a hockey player and jockey.

Yet as the image of him in ill-fitting jockey silks sadly came to mind it was followed by the soothing knowledge that Bol's publicity stunts had nothing to do with ego and everything to do with the many charities he supported in his native Sudan.

Bol was dedicated to helping others and instilling a measure of happiness in their lives and that thought brought me back to an old, yet treasured seat.

To say that 1984-85 season with the Purple Knights was amazing would be an understatement. It was, in my own mind, the wildest sports season any team has ever enjoyed. That might seem ridiculous to some, but that entire season was utterly preposterous.

It was the tale of a center from Sudan who brought his pencil-thin 7-foot-6, 200-pound frame to a decaying section of Bridgeport, enrolled at a university spiraling toward bankruptcy, joined a basketball team unknown beyond a 20-mile radius that was coached by a man who also drove a limo to support his family -- and for seven months he turned that corner of the world into a center of national attention.

He was treated like a rock star at home and a conquering hero in rival gyms.

He had the perfect ringmaster for this circus of a season in UB coach Bruce Webster, who had a tremendous sense of humor and reveled in telling tales about Bol's adventures.

The small supporting staff included assistant coaches, Jim Olayos and Vin Laczkoski, and Ken Best, who was transferred from university relations to serve as sports information director when the media crush got out of hand.

Then, as magically as this jolly giant appeared, he disappeared just as abruptly, leaving behind an emptiness that took years to overcome.

It was a story that would have been mocked for being unrealistic had it been told by a Hollywood movie studio.

It centered on Bol, who was billed as the tallest player in the history of college basketball. In an era long before youtube and never-ending showings of SportsCenter, the only way to see Bol was to actually attend a UB game, and that made the Purple Knights a season-long standing room only attraction both inside Harvey Hubbell Gym and on the road.

And when people saw him, they couldn't forget him.

I learned that when I first met him. I was introduced to Bol thanks to a part-time worker at The Hour, who was student at UB. He came in one afternoon and excitedly told me he had met UB's new center at a party the previous night - and he was 7-foot-6.

At a time with a younger drinking age, let's just say this fellow enjoyed the campus night life. He had once fallen asleep at the paper's microfilm machine, causing the film to burn and the smoke alarm to go off. So I figured his vision was a bit distorted that night. Still, to be safe, I called Webster, believing the team had some sort of a new player. Webster gave me only cryptic answers and invited me to come see this mysterious freshman for myself.

Hours later, I was standing at midcourt inside Harvey Hubbell with Webster, expecting to see a 6-foot-6 center, when I noticed the door leading to the lockerroom, which was about seven feet high, open. Someone ducked under it, then started to stand up, and up and up.

As this human broomstick approached me, Webster told me my jaw dropped like a sack of bricks had been dropped in it. I stuttered and said, "no, nnn-ooo." Then as Bol stood next to me I looked up at him and said "no" with a slight laugh, followed by a series of no, no, no" woven into unbridled laughter. I could not believe what I was seeing.

For the next few weeks, Webster used me as one of the examples of how people reacted to seeing Bol for the first time, along with an elderly woman at the airport who grabbed Bol's pants leg, shook it and said, "Are you on stilts or am I standing in a hole?"

A couple of days after my story on Bol ran, UB introduced him to the world at a press conference attended by 10 reporters, 10 photographers and three television crews. All of a sudden the pipe organ began to play.

The circus was back in Bridgeport.

"We went from small time to tall time," Webster said during that season. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think all of this attention would happen."

A big part of Bol's legacy was that, with the notable exceptions of trips to Sacred Heart and Southern Connecticut State, where they wore Bol Busters" t-shirts, rival fans seemed to embrace Bol like he was one of their own. They would laugh when one of their players was foolish enough to drive the lane and have their shot swatted away by this gawky center with a 48-inch sleeve.

Once, in a game at Bentley, when the outcome was already decided, the ball came to Bol who was all alone at midcourt. As Bol started to dribble toward the basket, Bentley's best player, Mark Calzonetti, grabbed Bol to stop him from dunking. Calzonetti was rewarded with boos loud enough to come from a vuvuzuela.

"I've never seen anything like that in my life," Laczkoski said a few days later. "The Bentley fans were angry because one of their players prevented two points. How often do you see that?"

Answer: About as often as you see an event like the one that happened at Quinnipiac College that January.

A few days before UB's game in Hamden, Webster received an invitation from a Quinnipiac fraternity to attend a post-game party. The Super Bowl was days away and the frat wanted the Purple Knights and a certain 7-foot-6 center to attend a "Super Bol" party.

Figuring it was a joke, Webster told the frat they would attend only if they won the game and then laughed about the invite with his team. But on the day of the game, Bol refused to board the team bus unless Webster agreed to attend the party.

Finally Webster said, "Okay, Manute, we'll go to the party, but only if we win,"

"Don't worry about that," Bol replied as he gave Webster a high-five.

At the game, once Webster told someone from the frat that the Purple Knights would indeed be at the party if they won, a rival gym became a homecourt for UB. There was a sign in the stands proclaiming "Bol 'em over. Let's party!"

And following an 83-76 UB victory, Webster kept his word and took the team to the party, where about 300 new fans of a Dinka tribesman treated him like royalty. Upon arriving, Bol received a large quart-sized mug with the Los Angeles Olympics logo on it that was filled with beer and a party unlike any other on a college campus that season was under way.

Afterwards, Bol said, "It was a nice party," with a wide grin. "If we play them again, maybe we'll party with them again."

UB did not visit Hamden again, but for a couple of hours a group of Quinnipiac students saw a side of Bol that was well known only in Bridgeport. Bol, when you got know him and he would open up to you, was just a big, fun-loving kid. He loved to joke with his teammates and could talk smack as well as anyone on the team. In the lockerroom he laughed about some fans "talking (expletive deleted)" to him. Or he would flex his biceps and say he wanted to be a pro wrestler. Or he would dance and sing to the sounds of Phil Collins' and Philip Bailey's "Easy Lover." Or he would talk about being in an Eddie Murphy movie because he was so funny.

Sadly, the story of that side of Bol was not told on a national level until he joined the NBA and reporters spent time with him on a daily basis. At UB, even the best reporters from the biggest media outlets had only brief access to Bol, and there was never a guarantee he would cooperate, regardless of circulation size or Nielsen ratings. Back then, Bol was wary of strangers, and if you came across the wrong way or slighted him, he was wise enough to avoid an argument by shunning someone or simply playing dumb.

He once bailed out on a shoot for Sports Illustrated so he could attend a geology class.

Don Feeley, the former Sacred Heart coach who introduced Bol to Webster, said at the time, "Sports Illustrated showed up with about $10,000 in equipment. Anyone else would have died to get their picture in Sports Illustrated, but Manute wanted to go to class."

Jennifer McLogan, who was then a correspondent for the NBC Nightly News, learned about Bol the hard way. One afternoon, late in the season, I was sitting with Bol and his best friends on the team, John O'Reilly and Terry Quinn, inside Bol's favorite restaurant, Famous Pizza. McLogan walked in with a cameraman and went up to Bol, telling him how she had wanted to talk with him for a segment on the NBC Nightly News. All of us lit up at the prospect of being on national television - except Bol.

As Bol spoke, I thought to myself that we had walked to the restaurant and were going to walk back. What ride was he talking about?

McLogan, seeing Bol would not budge, then stormed out of the restaurant. Once she left, Bol broke out into a bright smile and gave a high-five to Quinn and O'Reilly, and after the TV crew drove off, he got up and left - walking back to the campus.

A couple of days later, Webster said McLogan did not get her interview until she showed up at Bol's apartment with a screwdriver in hand and made an attempt to fix his TV.

That was the real Manute Bol, the same charismatic Bol I saw walking back to campus that afternoon. Young kids flocked to him like a pied piper as he walked through the streets. He would slap hands with them, joke with them, wrestle with them. With each street we passed, the number of followers grew.

And that's what sticks out most about the 1984-85 season. I can't remember how many points Bol scored or how many games UB won. A media guide tells me he averaged 22.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and 7.5 blocks. But I can remember McLogan's face, the way my jaw dropped when I first saw him, the game at Quinnipiac, the somber look on Bol's face in a bar after a season-ending NCAA loss to Sacred Heart and so many others stories it could fill a book. That's why it was such a one of a kind season. It wasn't just about basketball. It was about life and the exhilaration and euphoria that can sometimes come with it.

A few weeks before the season ended, I asked Webster what he would do if Bol did not return for another season. He said he would cry.

A few days after Bol met with Webster and told him he was leaving after that one 26-6 season to join the United States Basketball League, Webster said he did indeed cry when Bol left his office. He said he didn't want that year to end because it had been such a treasure and that it had gone by too quickly.

Now 25 years have passed just as quickly. Much has changed. Webster retired from UB in 1999. Olayos is now the athletic director at St. Joseph High and Laczkoski is the coach at Notre Dame of Fairfield.

Yet a few weeks ago tears slowly streamed once again. This time because that 1984-85 season finally ended, the last chapter coming this past Tuesday when Bol was buried in Washington. There can be no reunions, no new stories to tell about Manute Bol. Just memories. Some very special memories that will never leave those of us who knew him during that one, storybook season at the University of Bridgeport.